Global Societies

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 4
• Convenor and tutor: Ian Sanjay Patel
• Assessment: a 1500-word critical writing exercise (20%) and 2000-word essay (80%)

This module introduces you to global sociology. You will learn how to think internationally and transnationally, and compare social questions in societies across different regions. You will examine social and political questions at the level of the transnational, international and global; solidarity and social movements across borders; globalisation and global-versus-local debates and tensions; international inequalities and the global colour line; cosmopolitanism, as well as migration and borders. You will also examine sociological thought flowing from the Global South.

Indicative module syllabus

• Major themes in global sociology
• Southern social thought (sociology flowing from the Global South)
• Regional case studies
• Social and political questions at the level of the transnational, international and global
• Solidarity and social movements across borders
• Globalisation and global versus local debates and tensions
• International inequalities and the global colour line
• Cosmopolitanism, migration and borders
• The concept and critiques of international society, the international community, etc

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand the key concepts of global sociology
• demonstrate an understanding of the theoretical claims of ‘the universal’ in sociology as well as the particularity of such universal claims
• approach social relations and the social world from international, transnational and global perspectives
• demonstrate an understanding a key debates about global/local and national/international relationships
• demonstrate an understanding of sociological thinking flowing from the Global South.